Social Learning and Social Thinking
The ability to think socially is required prior to the production of social skills. As children age up, successful social thinkers are able to consider the points of view, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, prior knowledge and intentions of others (this is often called perspective-taking). For most people, this is an intuitive process whereby we determine the meaning behind the message and how to respond within milliseconds. Social Thinking occurs everywhere, when we talk, share space, walk down the street, even when we read a novel and relate to our pets. It is an intelligence that integrates information across home, work and community settings.
Social Thinking also demonstrates the link between one’s social learning abilities and his or her related ability (or disability) when processing and responding to school curriculum based in the use of the social mind (e.g., reading comprehension of literature, some aspects of written expression, etc.). Winner's ideas related to teaching social thinking, which are all based on the research, are the conceptual foundation for developing treatments for those with social challenges. Winner and colleagues argue that individuals who share a diagnostic label (e.g., Asperger syndrome) nonetheless exhibit extremely different social learning traits, or social mind profiles, and should have unique treatment trajectories, such as those based in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).
Read more about this topic: Social Thinking
Famous quotes containing the words social, learning and/or thinking:
“That children link us with the future is hardly news. . . . When we participate in the growth of children, a sense of wonder must take hold of us, providing for us a sense of future. Without the intimation of concrete individual futures, it is hardly worth bothering with social change and improvement.”
—Greta Hofmann Nemiroff (20th century)
“If you think of learning as a path, you can picture yourself walking beside her rather than either pushing or dragging or carrying her along.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)